Waiting
by Project Clu-Clu
Summary: Something written in honor of Lelouch's birthday - this one is more focused on C.C. and Lelouch, and is an AU. Lelouch moved to the country several years back, and C.C., his best friend, travels in the harsh winter to celebrate his birthday with him one last time before he moves to England.
1. Good-Bye

**A/N: Written in celebration of Lelouch's birthday. I'm sorry for the terrible quality, but at least _Thank You_ came out decently.**

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><p>Good-Bye<p>

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><p>"C.C.-senpai?"<p>

Rolo poked his head into the clubroom. She should be in here… She was usually in here after the last bell rang, eating pizza or writing letters or taking a nap. He hoped that she was still at school - he needed some help, and he didn't know who else to go to. Because although C.C-senpai was a bit prickly and could get on his nerves from time to time, she was the only one that Rolo trusted. She had been the one to save him from all of his classmates after all, those kids who used to pinch, kick, and spit at him. She was the only one who would be able to understand, who would listen, and he hoped that she would be there as she usually was.

Much to his dismay, when Rolo looked in, he found an empty room staring back.

Frowning, he straightened up. She was supposed to be here… She was never not here on Friday afternoons. What had happened? Had she stepped out to buy more pizza? But no. She knew all of the pizza deliverers by name, and they always came up to the clubroom for a brief chat. So where…?

"Rolo~"

The first-year immediately cringed as an arm snaked his neck before the noose tightened and he found himself pressed uncomfortably against Milly Ashford's rather sizable chest. Flushing, he tried to pull himself free.

"Are you looking for C.C., Rolo?"

"Yes," he stuttered. Nervously pushing his wire-frame glasses further up the bridge of his nose, he struggled to get away from his other, more-overzealous senpai. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Do… Do you happen to know where she is?"

"Yup."

"Then may I please know?"

"What will I get out of it if I tell you?"

He nervously blinked as she waited with her trademark grin. Tilting her head to the side, she asked, "What do I get out of it, Rolo?"

"Um…"

"Hmm?"

He only gave her a stiff smile in return as he tried to inch away from her, who was slowly but surely invading his personal space again, as was her habit.

Oh geez. What had he gotten himself into?

. . .

"Tochigi."

Rolo, having finally managed to give Milly the slip,stood underneath the roof of the school's entrance. He thought back to what the upperclassman had told him.

_"__C.C.'s gone off to Tochigi to meet her best friend. He moved down there from Tokyo a few years back, and they haven't really been able to see each other since. It's his birth day today, and she left school early so that she'd make it in doesn't want to miss his birthday this year, since it's his last birthday before he moves to England."_

_"__England?"_

_"__For university. He's going to Cambridge, I think. On full scholarship too. But that's not really what's important at the moment, is it?"_

Rolo watched the snow drifting down from the grey, overhanging clouds. Tochigi, huh? Going so far… And in such weather too. There was supposed to be heavy snow tonight, and though he didn't know what weather was going to be in Tochigi compared to Tokyo, he didn't think it was going to be much better.

Tugging his winter jacket close, he watched his breath freeze in the air before fading away. Hopefully, she'd be okay, C.C.-senpai. Rolo knew that she was strong and could take care of herself - better than he could take care of himself, anyway - but he also knew that no person was a match for Japan's December snowstorms, especially a person dressed in a thin school uniform. Sighing, he shook off his worry. She'd scold him for overthinking. So he compromised with himself - he'd pray for her. He had to go to the shrine today anyway, so he might as well pray to the heavens that she would be delivered safe and sound to her friend and that she have a nice time with him and that she wouldn't miss his birthday.

Stamping his feet to get the blood flowing, Rolo ducked his head and tightly wrapped his scarf around him. Shoes kicking up dirty snow, he hustled away. Time to go home, where he would be warm and sheltered from this nasty, frigid weather, while C.C.-senpai went to visit her friend.

Or maybe, he wondered, maybe she was going home too, since home was where the heart was.

Maybe.

. . .

C.C. glanced at her watch. The train was late.

_Again._

It was this goddamn weather that was pushing her schedule in ten minute increments, in eight minute increments, as they announced that the trains would be a little behind due to the weather. It was already 4:30PM. They were supposed to meet at 7. Her expression darkened as she glanced at her watch for the hundredth time in the past thirty seconds. She knew how unreliable the weather channel was, especially during the winters, and _especially_ when it came to snowstorms, but they had been so off with their report, it was a wonder any of them were paid. The only reason she wasn't angrier than she already was because she was freezing cold. Toes curling, she pressed her bare knees together as she clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. God, it was insanely cold. Hugging herself, she squeezed her eyes shut. Oh, the things she did for him.

Cold winter air rushed into her lungs before leaving in a white wisp. Her arms tightened around her as she opened her eyes to the nearly-empty train station. He'd scold her if he were here with her, she mused. He'd say that this was why he had told her to bring a change of clothes when she had left home that morning. She knew he would lecture her if he were here, because he had done so on several similar occasions for the very same reason - for dressing inappropriately for the weather.

She remembered the very last winter they had spent together before he had moved - they had been in their first year of middle school, and it had been a few days after he had broken the news to her. It had been a sullen atmosphere - she didn't tease him as she usually did, and he didn't make any jokes at her expense. They had just stood quietly at the station - not this one, but another one in another part of the city - waiting for the train to take them home from cram school.

They had only been standing outside for a few minutes before she had begun shaking from the cold. She remembered how thin the school uniform had been in middle school, much thinner than her uniform now. Lelouch had noticed and had started in on his trademark spiel, berating her for being so careless and ignorant, listing off the effects of being underdressed during the winter, and C.C. had been getting more and more annoyed with him with every censure that tumbled out of his mouth, but then he suddenly wrapped his scarf around her and took her cold hand into his warm one and placed it in his pocket.

She had been slightly taller than him then, but tall enough to look down on him, and as she stared at him, surprised, she remembered seeing his already-rosy cheeks brighten with embarrassment. He turned away, refusing to make eye-contact, before gruffly telling her that she owed him one.

It had been warm then. She had stopped shaking as they stood together, their shoulders brushing against each other and their hands clasped together in the warmth of his pocket. But he wasn't here, and she couldn't feel his warm hand, and she was cold. Shuffling her feet, she tried to distract herself from the weather and let her thoughts wander to her friend.

Lelouch had always been the strangest boy. He would constantly bicker with her, and they'd treat each other like the enemy, but they always did everything together for some inexplicable reason, and then there were moments like then, when he acted as if his sole purpose was to try and make her blush - which he, to his credit, usually succeeded. He'd lecture her as if he was her father, play with her like the friend that he was, and, once or twice, hold her as if their relationship was something more than just that of friends. Their relationship had been confusing. He'd confuse her more often than not, but then again, she'd confuse him too, as proven by the way he had yelled at her right before he had moved.

As she looked up to the rapidly darkening sky, she thought of the first letter of a thousand.

_"__Cera, there's a letter for you."_

_"__A letter?"_

_Slipping her shoes off, she took the envelope in her mother's outstretched hand. From behind, she could hear Milly giggle, "I bet it's from Lelouch. Hey Kallen, you want to bet on it? I say the stakes are one favor."_

_"__No," flatly replied Kallen. "There's no way in hell I'm going to be betting on anything against you."_

_"__It's not from Lelouch," C.C. said coldly. "Why would he write to me? Especially after treating me the way he did before he left?"_

_"__Don't tell me you're still angry about what he said," groaned Kallen. "C.C., the poor guy was just confused. He wanted to make sure that you and he were on the same page so he wouldn't make the mistake of—"_

_"__Kallen, did you ever get over your crush on Lelouch?"_

_"__Crush? What crush?"_

_"__The crush Milly told me about."_

_"__The crush Milly told— Milly! You weren't supposed to— God, this is why I hate making bets against you, something like this always happens!"_

_As Kallen avenged the death of her secret, C.C. looked over the envelope. Who had sent her a letter? Maybe Pizza Hut? After all, she… Wait a second._

_This handwriting… It couldn't… Could it? She immediately checked what prefecture it had journeyed from._

_T… T—_

_"__Tochigi? Tochigi, Tochigi… Hey, Kallen, why does Tochigi sound so familiar?"_

_"__Tochigi? That's… Isn't that where Lelouch moved to?"_

_"__That's a letter from Lelouch, isn't it?"_

_"__What? Are you serious?" Kicking her shoes off, Kallen rushed up to where her friends were standing. Peeking over C.C.'s shoulder, she read the address inked on the envelope. Her eyes widened. It really was from Lelouch._

_"__He sent you a love letter? Kallen, he sent a love—"_

_"__It's not a love letter," C.C. said sharply. "This letter had better have nothing short of begging for forgiveness, or he can wait all his life and he'll never get a reply from me."_

_"__You're really hung up on the argument, huh?"_

_"__It was pretty big," muttered Kallen. "Even Tohdoh-sensei couldn't split them apart."_

_"__Aren't you going to open it, C.C.?" curiously asked Milly._

_"__No."_

_"__But—"_

_"__No."_

_Even Milly dropped the subject when she saw the look in C.C.'s eyes._

_"__Well, we've stood by the door long enough." Milly quickly changed the subject with as much cheer as she could muster. "Come on, let's go up to your room! I want to show you two something!"_

She had memorized every handwritten word on those sheets of paper. She remembered rubbing the pads of her fingers over the lines, feeling the indentations and raised bumps on the paper, careful not to smudge the pencil. Half a year had passed between their argument and the first letter, and it wasn't until she opened that envelope, her heart racing, reading the letter over and over, memorizing every bit of it, that she realized just how much she had missed him during those painful six months.

She remembered crudely wiping the tears welling up in her eyes with her sleeve at his apologies, as he asked for forgiveness for the things he had said. It had taken some time to calm down after letting loose six months' worth of pain and heartbreak. But she had eventually managed to pull herself together enough to write a reply back, saying that she was sorry too before asking him how his new home was, if there were any cats on the way to school that he could feed, just as they used to feed Milk, the black-and-white stray that was always in that one alleyway on that one street on the way to school. If he had made any friends, teasing him and making jokes as they once had when they had been together.

And thus, years of writing began, in which thousands of letters crossed hundreds of miles. She had picked up the habit of religiously checking the mailbox. It still stuck with her even today. And although their letters grew fewer and farther in between as time passed and they grew older, their letters became longer and much more heart-felt.

Milly would always poke fun, pretending to swoon as she clutched sheets of paper to her chest and bat her eyelashes, saying in her trademark theatre voice, "O Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou next letter, Romeo?" But she didn't understand what those letters meant to her. Her parents didn't, none of her friends did. No one could truly understand the feeling that swelled up inside of her whenever she looked into the mailbox and saw the familiar lavender envelope sitting there, waiting for her.

It was her only connection to him. Sure, as they grew older and technology inevitable advanced, they called more often. And they had met up once or twice during the holidays, when they had been free to there was just something about writing that let them open up to each other in the way that they had never been able to when they had been face-to-face. Not even with the years of friendship they shared had they been able to forge such a deep emotional bond.

It wasn't until they had started writing to one another when he first told her of how scared he was for Nunnally, for whom they had moved to the countryside for, where the air was clearer and the pace of life much more suited to someone with her needs. And she herself was finally able to muster up the courage to reveal her greatest fear to him, how afraid she was that no one was going to love her, that she was going to grow up to be all alone and by herself for her entire life.

She had regretted sending it to him so much. The next day she had sent it, she had been sitting in math class when the weight of her actions - or rather, the weight of her words - finally sunk in. But the letter had already been picked up by the postman, and there was no going back. The entire week had been spent in agony as she desperately tried to imagine what his reaction would be. No doubt he would laugh at her, agreeing that no man would ever love her, what with the witch she was.

But then, the following Monday afternoon, as she had tried to brace herself for the reply that was waiting in the mailbox as it always was,she had looked up, only to see him standing by the school's gates, her tear-soaked letter clutched tightly in his hand.

The first thought that crossed her mind was how tall he had grown, and how his face had changed. For the better, she , adorable Lelou was finally turning into someone more grown-up as his body matured. As was hers, she had realized by the way his eyes seemed to just roam over her developing curves that her school uniform couldn't hide. But there had been some things that hadn't changed then. He still had those nerdy glasses. She still wore her hair short. They still quarreled. Her mother still doted on him. He still lectured her, and she certainly had never given up on teasing him every opportunity she received. And he still put her hand into his pocket as they walked through the snowy streets, just as they had when they had been children and hadn't yet known that the world was full of separation and farewells.

C.C. sighed as she pulled the collar of her winter jacket up. What would it be like when they finally met again? Would things be the same as before, when he had surprised her with an unplanned visit three years ago? Or would it be different,now that they had completely grown up?

She knew that he no longer wore glasses, having traded them in for contact-lenses. And he had told er how he had grown taller, so tall that he had to duck under doorways (given, the doorways in the country were usually lower than those in the city, but that didn't change that he was most likely towered over her). And he always griped about how his sister, his mother, every woman in the village tried to stuff him, worrying over how skinny he was. But that was just his body, his physical appearance. And although it was nice to have a more up-to-date picture of him in her head, rather than a picture of an awkward 14-year-old, that wasn't what she particularly cared about. What C.C. cared about was his mind, his personality. What would it be like? It had probably changed,but in what ways was his personality different? It didn't seem like there had been many changes in his letters, with the way he talked, of the things he chose to talk about, but letters could always be rewritten if need be, pencil could always be erased, and each new sheet of paper bore no history and served as the perfect vessel for fiction. It was only until they were in front of one another would she know just who today's Lelouch vi Britannia was and what he was like.

She would be lying if she said that she wasn't anxious. She was. Ever since they had first promised to meet on December 5th, a tight knot had appeared in the pit of her stomach, and had grown tighter and increasingly intricate with each passing day that brought her a little closer to their reunion. On the morning the calendar told her that the day had finally arrived, the one day she had been waiting for for two months, the tight knot had trembled with both anxiety and excitement, and C.C. had spent the entire day in limbo, too numb with nerves and exhilaration to pay much attention to her surroundings.

But at least she wasn't alone. Lelouch had called her during lunch, reminding her that they were supposed to meet at 7PM and that he would be waiting for her at the waiting station and to make sure to dress warmly since it was colder in Tochigi than it was in Tokyo. And although it had been subtle, she had heard the restrained excitement in his voice as he nagged her as per the custom. As she listened to him rattle off, she smiled as she listened - so she was the only one, huh?

C.C. smiled. That was right. She wasn't the only one.

Off in the distance, she could hear the faint blaring of the train's horn as it sped towards them. The tracks rattled and the wind picked up. Closing her eyes, C.C. held her skirt down as the train rushed past. But even as it grew colder, and even though she was behind schedule more than she was comfortable with, and even though she was nervous to meet him again, C.C. smiled because she knew that she wasn't the only one who was nervous to meet again, that she wasn't the only one who had quietly struggled with what-ifs and fantasies for two long months.

C.C. stepped through the train's open doors and into the warmth it offered. Taking a seat, she settled in and looked out the window as the train began to move. She was finally on her way again. There had been setbacks, but it was too late to give up now. She refused to give up. There were things she had to say to him that she couldn't write on paper, things that would be best to hear from her when they were face-to-face, and she had a feeling that this was going to be her last chance to see him before he left.

As the train picked up speed, and the snow whipped by as the snow-covered landscape blurred into white, her hands curled into a fist. She would make it. She had to. For the sake of all those years of separation, she had to have one last celebration with him, she had to give him her present.

She had to tell him the story of how she had finally understood why they had had that argument all those years ago, of why she hadn't been able to answer him when he had asked her what he was to her.

She had to tell him the truth.

. . .

The cold stung her eyes as C.C. stepped off of the train and entered a different world. It was unbearably quiet - so silent, she could have heard the snow falling. But she wasn't focused on how quiet it was. As she stood on the empty platform, ankle-deep in glittering snow, she could only think of how she had spent seven hours on the train. For seven hours, she had sat in that train as it fought the strong winter gusts that pushed against it and the ice that froze the train tracks. For seven hours, she had held back her tears.

She wanted to cry but didn't think she could muster up the energy to. She was starving, freezing,and exhausted. But it was getting harder and harder to swallow past the rising lump in her throat, and she could feel the familiar prickling sensation that came just before the dam opened and the tears fell. Wilting, she sniffled before starting on her way to shelter.

As she slowly trudged from the platform to the small waiting station down below, with the smoke rising from its small tin chimney and its frost-covered windows, she listened to the quiet ticking of her watch that counted, not only the passing seconds, but also the swelling of the disappointment at having missed their appointment.

She found herself wondering for the thousandth time if he would be waiting for her, or if he had given up and gone home. And for the thousandth time, she took in a shuddering breath as she told herself what she already knew - he had gone home.

She really wasn't the type to cry, especially over being late. But it was 11 now, and nearly midnight, and she had been looking forward to this so much, and so had he, and it had been so long since she had last seen him and they were going to sit down and celebrate his birthday just as they had always done all of those years ago. But now they couldn't even take a walk down memory lane, she thought bitterly, all because of her.

She swallowed. She wasn't going to cry. Crying was stupid. It didn't do anything but make her look weak and vulnerable, which were the two things she wasn't. Except. Maybe she was weaker and more vulnerable than she thought she was. And maybe there was still a tiny bud of hope in her, hope that he would be there when she walked in. Even when she told herself that he had gone, that it was too late, the hope refused to die. C.C. stood in front of the door, jaw clenched, as her hand wrapped around the frigid metal of the door handle. Praying that her head was wrong and that her heart was right, she opened the door and went inside to meet him.

She stared at the empty waiting room.

He really had gone home.

As reality sunk in, she buried her face in her hands. The prickling behind her eyes became unbearable and she couldn't swallow anymore, and oh God, she was going to cry, and she was feeling so miserable because she had screwed the one thing up she cared most about, and what was she going to do now, when he was leaving for England in a few months, and God, she had wanted to see him so badly. She tried to calm her uneven breathing, but she just felt so weak from the harrowing journey, and now that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the disappointment was just too much to handle. It was just too much, after what she had endured. Pressing her hands to her eyes, she pleaded with herself, praying that she wouldn't cry. She didn't want to cry here, not in some unfamiliar place, miles away from her home, in front of some stranger, who, even though he looked nice, knew nothing about this and would only misunderstand why she was cry—

"C.C.?"

Hearing the familiar voice, she looked over her shoulder to see Lelouch standing in the doorway. Snow powdered his dark hair as he stared at her.

Her eyes widened and she managed to choke out a reply.

"Lelouch…"

"I… When did you arrive? I just stepped out for a second to get a drink, but— Were you here long?"

Her lower lip trembled as she memorized every single detail, every single shadow of the picture before her. He had been waiting for her all this time. He hadn't gone home, he hadn't given up. He had stayed, just for her. Because, she realized, he had wanted to see her just as much as she had wanted to see him.

"C.C.?"

Because he had wanted to see her just as much as she had wanted to see him, he had waited for all those hours. The thought brought a smile on her tired face, and the corners of her lips lifted up just the slightest as she said, "It's been a long time, hasn't it, Lelouch?"


	2. Hello

**A/N: Okay, um, wow, it is _way_ after Lelouch's birthday, but finals got in the way. So here you are. It's not very good, but I like the resolution, and I hope you do too.**

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><p>Hello<p>

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><p>All around them, as far as the eye could see, nothing stirred save for the gentle snow falling from the sky. The moon peeked out from the thick grey clouds, illuminating the two figures who were slowly making their way through the fields blanketed in snow. There was no sound to be heard, save for the snow crunching under each step they took - even the dry rustling of the naked trees was absent, setting a romantic, if not ghostly, atmosphere.<p>

It was missed by C.C. though, who was busy staring at her friend, who was walking just five steps ahead of her. She noticed each and every subtle change as her eyes grazed over him. His back was so much wider than the last time she had seen him, not to mention how his shoulders, which were hunched from the cold, had also become less of a boy's shoulders in breadth and more of a man's. And true to his word, he had grown taller - a full head taller than her, so that he was finally the one looking down on her, instead of the way it had been for years. He had changed so much more than she thought he had. Not just in body either - in mind too.

As she followed after him, acutely noticing how even his footprints surpassed her own, C.C. wondered if she even knew him anymore. It didn't seem like she did. It seemed like he was a completely different person, a stranger, even with the hundreds of letters stuffed in the shoebox under her bed. Even the silence seemed to attest to her fear - it was no longer a comfortable silence, but more one of tension, a silence straining with awkwardness. It was foreign, being so unfamiliar with the one who had once had as large of a part in her life as her arm.

And then the first domino fell with a quiet click, and C.C. stopped walking. As she stood in the snow, watching him move on without her, she swallowed with some difficulty as she finally admitted defeat and surrendered to the demons that had been whispering in her ears for the past six months. Listening to them talk about how she didn't know him anymore, that she couldn't overcome space and time no matter how hard she tried, and that it was time to let him go, C.C. watched him grow smaller and smaller.

She wanted to go to him. She wanted to run to him, to hug him and tell him how she really felt, but she just couldn't go on any longer. It was just too much. Finally, after years of writing to one another, he was here, right in front of her. She thought of the countless times she had dreamt of this moment, how she had lay awake in bed as she tried to imagine what their reunion would be like, what she would say, what he would do. And he was here. He was finally in front of her. After years of waiting, she could finally hear his voice, touch his skin, see his face. After years of waiting, they were finally together again, even if it only was for one night.

But this… What was this? It was making her miserable, this. The silence. The way he kept walking, leaving her behind. How she couldn't see his face and only saw his back. C.C. quickly moved her attention from Lelouch to his footprint. This was stupid. And this had been a mistake. No, this wasn't a mistake. She had made a mistake, the greatest mistake of her 18 years, but coming here wasn't it. It was thinking that they could pick up their relationship from where they had left it when they had been 14, that they could move on to something greater, something that would appease and lighten her heart.

That had been her greatest mistake.

C.C. subconsciously clenched her fist. How much stupider could she have been? Requited love? Boyfriend? Being loved? Ha! As if that would ever happen. As if he would ever think of her in the way that she thought of him. She thought of their most recent letters - for the past few months or so, they had completely avoided the subject of relationships. Even C.C. had ceased her teasing, as if by some unsaid agreement that they would completely circumvent the matter. She had wondered why, but now she knew. She had finally figured out why.

He already had someone he loved. And it wasn't her.

She grit her teeth as she let the bitter words sink in. She had been too late and had missed her chance. She hadn't acted fast enough, had been a coward, and because of how frightened she had been of his reaction, had unwittingly given him to another. C.C. pursed her lips as she breathed in deeply in an attempt to calm herself. There was no use in crying. Crying wouldn't accomplish anything. It wouldn't turn back time, it wouldn't give her a second chance, and it certainly wouldn't change reality.

Crying wouldn't fix the greatest mistake she had ever made.

So why…

Why couldn't she walk after him? Why couldn't she look up to stop her tears? And why couldn't she pick up the pieces of her heart like a good witch was supposed to and pretend as if nothing had happened, even when her world had crumbled to return to the dust it had been formed from?

Why couldn't she pull herself together and smile for him?

. . .

When he realized that he was walking alone, Lelouch stopped. Why couldn't he hear C.C.'s footsteps? She hadn't gotten hurt, had she? Worried, he turned. She wasn't hurt, thankfully, but for some reason, she was standing in the middle of the road, her head bowed with her hair fluttering in the chilly winter breeze. Confused, he frowned and called out to her, but she was either ignoring him or his voice had been swallowed by the snow, because she didn't move. Confusion immediately changed to concern and he immediately retraced his steps back to her, wondering the whole time what was making her so upset.

"Oi."

She didn't reply. As he stared at her, waiting for a reply, nothing moved all around them, save for the dancing of their clothes in the light winter wind.

"C.C."

He tried to soften his tone - he was impatient with the cold, not with her, and he didn't want another misunderstanding with her. Especially now, when he still had something important to tell her. But she still remained mute and frozen, and alarms went off in his head. Was she alright?

Pressing his warm hand on her cheek, he told her, "We're halfway home. We just have to walk a little more, and then you can take a hot bath to warm yourself from the weather. I promise it's just a little way more, so just endure for a little longer. Here."

He unwrapped his black knit scarf and wound it around her. He had dressed warmly - his school uniform's winter jacket was unusually thick, probably because he lived in the countryside where the barren openness offered no shelter from the harsh winter winds and made it seem significantly colder than it really was, compared to the city with its tall buildings. But this woman… She hadn't even bothered changing out of her school uniform, despite his warnings. He should have known that she'd just ignore him. But all the same, guilt struck him. It was because of him that she was suffering from the freezing weather like this, all because he had asked her to come down from Tokyo for his birthday.

Adjusting his scarf to better warm her neck, he was about to tell her that there was pizza waiting for her at home, when she suddenly pushed his hands down so that they were hanging by her side. He watched as she reached up and unwound his scarf before roughly shoving it into his chest, as if to say that she didn't want his help. Taking it from her, Lelouch watched, surprised, with wide eyes as she stepped around him and was about to walk by, until he saw a glint and saw how wet her eyes were.

C.C. tried to push by him, not wanting him to notice. It was his birthday - this was wrong. She had already ruined his birthday enough, to cry was just mannerless and—

She stared at his hand, which was gripping her arm. When his hold tightened, she winced but said nothing and only looked at him, waiting for him to say something, waiting for their relationship to go back to normal.

"How many times have you cried because of me?"

"Lelouch, it's your birthday, we shouldn't talk about this toda—"

"How many times," he turned to face her, "have you cried because of me, C.C.?"

"Aren't you angry, Lelouch? Because of me, you had to sit in some waiting station all day long. Because of me, your birthday came and went."

So that was what this was about.

Lelouch leaned back and looked at the winter sky and its twinkling stars as C.C. stared at the ground. Tears were dangerously hanging from her eyelids over the expanse of crisp white snow, over the toes of his brown shoes, and over the tongues of her school loafers. She had never felt so guilty before - the more and more she thought about him having to wait all those hours all by himself, not even sure if she was coming or not, made the guilt heavier and heavier until she couldn't swallow and she couldn't breathe. Why had he even waited? What had possessed him to stay in that seat all afternoon long and deep into the night? What had made him think that she was coming, that kept him from losing faith? And why was he being so nice to her? When she had ruined his birthday?

"C.C."

"What is it?" she mumbled.

"C.C., look at me. Look at me please, C.C."

She reluctantly looked, only to be surprised by his smile, which was lit up by the soft moonlight reflecting off of the pure white snow.

"You're here, C.C. All that matters is that you're here now. I've already forgotten about that, and so you should. Do you understand? All I care about is that you're here because… Well… Because I…" He faltered for a second as his ears turned as red as Rudolph's nose. "Because I love you."

Her eyes widened as he nervously dug the toe of his shoe into the snow.

"I've been meaning to tell you. That I've loved you for some time now."

He loved her? He… He liked her? He daydreamed about her just like she daydreamed of him? His heart raced whenever he opened one of her letters just like hers raced? She wasn't alone in the way she felt?

"Do you? If you don't, then I understand. I don't want to make you uncomfortable if you don't feel the same way. Even if you don't, I'd still like to continue being friends with you, I promise it won't get in the way of our friendsh-"

C.C. fell into his warm smile as she tightly wrapped her arms around him. His thick coat soaked up her hot tears as she tried to muffle her sobs. She could feel his arms hold her - she only burrowed her face into his chest, relieved that she hadn't ruined anything, that he wasn't angry with her, and that everything was still alright.

"There, there," he chuckled. "Everything's going to be fine, C.C. All's well that ends well, right?"

"I thought I was going to miss it," she choked. Shuddering from her tears, she whispered, "I thought that you had given up and left because I had ruined everything. I thought that I wouldn't be able to tell you before you left for England."

"Tell me what?" he quietly asked. Leaning back, she looked up at him as he gently wiped away the tracks her tears had left.

"That I love you."

He smiled.

"And there's the birthday present I've been waiting for all these years."

"Happy birthday, Lelouch."

"Thank you, C.C."

Her breath was light as his lips inched closer to hers. Her eyes fluttered as she stared at his lips, transfixed by how closer they were, before meeting his hooded gaze.

"I… First kiss," she mumbled.

"That's alright with me," he murmured. "It's not as if I'm any different."

The corners of her lips drew up into a smile for the first time that entire evening before it disappeared behind a kiss that stuck her feet to the ground and a warmth to wash all over her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

_I missed you, Lelouch._

_I missed you too, C.C._

_Happy birthday, Lelouch._

_Thank you, C.C._

_I love you, Lelouch._

_I love you too, Cera._


End file.
